This is straight up #basic roasted veggies. Neither a true ratatouille nor a tian, ths dish has elements of both and is delicious in its rustic simplicity. Arranging/baking the veggies in this method makes it more attractive to serve, if you care about that.
The keys to these really great end-of-summer vegetables are in the quality of your produce and the seasoning. Admittedly, my tomatoes weren’t great at the time I shot this recipe. At the end of August I’m already freaking out about #fall and #PSL and all that other #basic stuff, but this is the time to savor dishes highlighting amazing summer produce.
Seasoning: infuse some olive oil and heavily salt/pepper your veg. And that’s it. I gently warm crushed garlic cloves, chili flakes, and some fresh herbs if I have them on hand, and then strain all that out and pour the oil over the veggies. Because this cooks at a higher temperature for a long time, you could burn things like garlic or fresh herbs which will throw off the flavor. But give it a shot if you don’t feel like straining things out of olive oil.
We eat this as a stand-alone vegetarian dish, but I would serve it as part of a meal with a simple roast chicken, on top of mashed potatoes or risotto, or a piece of fish (ew, fish). And, of course, wine. Farewell, summer!
Basic Roasted Summer Vegetables
Ingredients
- 1 cup good olive oil
- 3-4 garlic cloves, smashed
- pinch of chili flakes
- roughly diced fresh herbs if you want - I used basil here
- 3-4 medium sized ripe tomatoes
- 1 yellow squash
- 2 baby eggplant or 1 larger eggplant
- 1 zucchini
- 1 onion
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Place garlic, chili flakes, and herbs into the olive oil and warm over medium low heat. Let sizzle for a few minutes and then turn the heat off and allow olive oil to cool.
Slice all the veggies in as equal thinness as possible. Try to select veggies with similar widths so your slices are roughly the same size around.
Very lightly grease a baking dish. Any shape will work so long as the volume is appropriate for this quantity.
Assemble alternating vegetables standing up.
Strain the olive oil and pour it over the veggies, along with generous salt and pepper.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Notes
I used a mandoline to slice the veggies into equal size, and also because its much faster.
Elaine
September 13, 2018 at 6:04 pmYummy!